The City Planning Department has now released its report on this proposed development, which you can read online or download.
From our perspective it is rather weak relative to the community’s concerns.
The Planner has only used the below two planning guidelines for the assessment of the application. He has not considered the single-family homes immediately across the road and to the west as a more relevant context for assessment.
Design Guidelines
The following design guidelines have been used in the evaluation of this application:
- Tall Building Design Guidelines; and,
- Growing Up Guidelines Planning for Children in New Vertical Communities.
Further, when talking about area context, the report begins with a comparison with Brentwood Towers first – which is several hundred meters away, only 17 floors and on a deeper parcel of land.
The only positive thing for our community – still a little understated – is a section in the comments which describes the main problem with the application from our perspective:
“The proposal in its current form does not demonstrate an appropriate transition from existing and planned heights within the Mixed-Use Areas around the Yonge Street and St. Clair Avenue West intersection and does not provide an adequate transition to the Neighbourhood areas to the west of the site.”